Smallville

Eight seasons of Digital Dailies using Hibernia Media Managed Workflow Services

Smallville, a CW show, is the modern retelling of the Superman legend and its classic characters. The producers blend realism, action and emotional depth to reveal a new interpretation of the enduring mythology. Now entering its 9th season, the show continues to enjoy critical and commercial success.

Business challenge:

Warner Brothers Television and Deluxe need to marry remote shooting and post functions in Vancouver, British Columbia Canada, with the editing and approval functions in Burbank, California.

For television serials, production is all about delivering product on-time, every-time. That means producers, post-supervisors, editors and studio executives in Burbank are focused on workflow control and production deadlines. As a result, the director and crew in Vancouver need to balance creative needs, quality and show costs with delivering the product on schedule.

That’s a tall order if the show is relying on the “Fish Flight” everyday between Vancouver to Los Angeles. An additional day of lag time is needed to distribute review dailies on VHS and DVD media as well as edit dailies on hard drives. Quality and data integrity risks are elevated due to the need to compensate for the transportation of physical media.

Hibernia Media Solution:

Warner Brothers Television uses Hibernia Media Managed Workflow Services to manage its Smallville Digital Dailies process. Hibernia Media connects disparate elements of the workflow seamlessly between the Vancouver and Burbank production teams using network connectivity, content and format orchestration techniques for play list assembly, and a non-linear Digital Dailies player application.

Collaboration between Vancouver and Burbank and back again is accelerated in a tightly managed closed loop that includes the director, producers, writers, editors, and post-supervisors. Hibernia Media Managed Workflow Serivices eliminate the additional day of lag time without sacrificing creative quality or risking data integrity.

Outcome: Better product.

Accelerating collaboration in the workflow using Hibernia Media managed network connectivity enables Warner Brothers Television to streamline play list assembly and deliver rough cuts faster (often the same day as shooting). This immediately helps the director with quality and continuity issues for episode revision. Longer term, this supports more productive review sessions and improves the creative writing process for storyline development, foreshadowing, and episode creation. Hibernia Media Managed Workflow Services is a critical element helping the Smallville production team create better product season after season.